Why We Need to Bring Science to Church

Since the nonprofit organization I co-direct has a mission of “cultivating a stronger church through meaningful dialogue with mainstream science,” I thought I’d give the key reasons why the task of Science for the Church is strategic and valuable. 

Here are my top five.

1. Why: Because the Church needs a viable Gospel.
   • In their research, the Barna Group found one of the top six reasons emerging adults are leaving the church: They see it as “anti-science.” Too often this perception is accurate, and we need to stop this. Barna also found that 49% of church-going teens believe the "church seems to reject what science tells us about the world."

2. Why: Because, without this dialogue, the church loses the glorious insights of science. With it, the Christian community flourishes.
   • Following Psalm 19, as well as Francis Bacon in the 16^th century, and Francis Collins in the 21^st, we see that God has written two texts: the book of Scripture and the book of Nature. Since these have one Author, these two books do not contradict. Our task, as the church—as the people who follow Jesus—is to bring together “mainstream science and mere Christianity.”

3. Why: Because this is our heritage as Christians.
   • The Scientific Revolution arose in the Christian west. This, of course, isn’t to say that all of science arose from Christianity (that would discount Muslim science, for example). Still, I will say (along with many others) that the Christian doctrine of God’s creating a cosmos, and not a chaos, means that we can study it and understand it. This is our Christian heritage, and we must not forsake it. It’s also a key part of our American history. I think of the Puritan pastors, like Jonathan Edwards, who, as the most educated people of the day, regularly combined reflection on theology with “natural philosophy” (the name for science in those days).

4. Why: Because the United States needs Christians engaged in the sciences.
   • In order for the country to stay as leader in this world, we need the two-thirds of our population who names Christ, to be pro- science and technology. There are far too many examples of Christians denying science.

5. Why: Because, as people disaffiliate from churches, we need to Christians to be in the world of science and technology.
   • God gathers the church in worship, to be sure, but God also sends out the church scattered. This is naturally an evangelistic task, but also, as Makoto Fujimura calls it, the task of “culture care.”

Those are my top five. How would you prioritize them? Do you have any to add?

Francis Collins, Science and Religion: Need I Say More?

"I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith…. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God’s majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.” Francis Collins

Francis Collins embodies humanity and humility. From what I've experienced and heard (I've met him twice in person and know several of his friends), he's as compelling publicly as he is privately. At an American Scientific Affiliation conference, I video'd him leading a sing-along of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."

Collins wasn't groomed from birth for his current position as a preeminent voice in religion and science. Brought up by free-thinking artistic parents, Collins discounted Christianity until, on the advice of a Methodist minister, he encountered Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Not too long after, he became a Christian while in medical school at 27. 

The Human Genome Project represents perhaps the most significant scientific project of the 21st century. In April 2003, it unveiled the full sequencing our human DNA. Collins headed that. 

He penned the 2009 bestselling The Language of God, which demonstrated the importance of our genetic code in how God "speaks" through the book of nature. Almost immediately, he was flooded with questions. He decided to convene a small team of specialists, to work out answers, which they posted on a website. This formed the basis for starting the BioLogos Foundation.

President Obama appointed Collins as Director of the National Institutes of Health just a few months later. (As a result, he had to leave official work for BioLogos.) It's a post he's continued with President Trump. Serving under such different administrations is obviously quite a feat! But it says something about the man, his competence and his character. Indeed his is a voice that’s guided us well during the worst global pandemic in a century.

Besides all that (and more), this year he was awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize in Progress in Religion, which this leads to an invitation. If you’d like to hear him receive the Templeton Prize and offer an address through a virtual ceremony on September 24th at 7pm Eastern, use this link to register. (And please share it.)

As I did last week, I'll let quotations again speak most loudly. (And this is one, I must admit, I often use in science and faith talks when I’m searching for something wise to say).  

"Studying the natural world is an opportunity to observe the majesty, the elegance, the intricacy of God's creation."

Note: A longer version of these reflections will appear on the Science for the Church website on September 8, 2020. 

A Very Brief Collection of Provocative Quotations on Science and Faith

Sometimes, it's good just to listen, to listen, that is, to voices of wisdom. In this case, as I've been doing research for an upcoming Science for the Church newsletter, I've discovered some insights from three voices that are certainly worthy of our contemplation.

First is from the leading New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, who has emphasized how our metaphysics or our worldview (take your pick of the terms) constrains how we think about God and science:

“My point is this: if you’re trying to have a discussion about God’s involvement in the world—creation, science, whatever—while living and breathing a system in which God has been disinvolved with the world by definition… that is going to make it very difficult.” N.T. Wright in Surprised by Scripture

The second comes from late Rachel Held Evans, who died far too young at age 37 in 2019, and who still resonates as a voice for younger Christians and especially progressives (though, to me, she sounds indelibly orthodox). (In this, you can hear the emergence of a thoughtful follower of Jesus from the straight-jacket of fundamentalism, can't you?)

“Contrary to what many of us are told, Israel’s origin stories weren’t designed to answer scientific, twenty-first-century questions about the beginning of the universe or the biological evolution of human beings, but rather were meant to answer then-pressing, ancient questions about the nature of God and God’s relationship to creation.” Rachel Held Evans

Finally, I turn to the great Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project, current head of the National Institutes of Health, recipient of this year's Templeton Prize, 

“I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith…. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God’s majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.” Francis Collins

Now, I ask you, isn't each of those quotations a thing of beauty?

Three More Trending Topics in Science and Religion

I'm back to my Top Eleven List of topics in science and religion, many of which are trending in importance. They are excerpted from my just-published book (!), Negotiating Science and Religion in America: Past, Present, and Future.

Genetics, medicine, and the specter of eugenics 

This is the first topic that I see trending; that is, entering into the conversation of  science and religion with a new prominence. Here I will note a specific discovery in genetic editing, CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat). Francis Collins remarked in 2019 that CRISPR “came out of nowhere  five years ago,” a technique that works via an “enzyme like what you have in a word processor that does search and replace,” which makes it relatively easy. And he added, “High school students can do this. And that should worry you.” CRISPR makes germline interventions, which affect future generations, unlike somatic cell interventions, which do not. This leads to the question of how to use this powerful and simple technology and whether to cure diseases or create “designer babies.” It also raises issues of what to do about undesirable traits. And who decides what or who needs to be edited out? The specter of eugenics is on the horizon. Finally, who will be given the power to decide? Will religious ideas play any part in these conversations? 

Psychology, neuroscience, and the cognitive science of religion 

Functional Magnetic Imaging Resonances (FMRIs) seem to show what’s happening inside our brains. Is God all in our head? And do the insights of neuroscience finally rid us of believing there’s a soul? Here Buddhist approaches to the non-self, or anatta, and some forms of cognitive science and neuroscience seem to have striking similarities. In addition there’s a growing interest in appropriating the Buddhist practice of mindfulness and its relationship to secular psychology, and especially positive psychology. Finally, the Cognitive Science of Religion, which powerfully brings together the cognitive sciences in the service of understanding religious belief and practice, has also provided fruitful insights for further discussion and research. 

Cosmology and astrobiology 

Key to many religious traditions is an emphasis on the nature of the world, or the  universe, and our place in it. Recent astronomical discoveries have highlighted the vast number of exoplanets (planets beyond our own solar system). In the seventeenth century the scientifically and theologically minded Blaise Pascal considered his “brief span of life” and 

“the small space I occupy and which I see swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which knows nothing of me, I take fright and am amazed….” Blaise Pascal 

And there are medieval hints and certainly eighteenth-century antecedents. Still, some assert that exoplanets and the possible (or probable) existence of extraterrestrial life mean the sudden death of the Christian scheme of salvation since, according to the biblical texts, Jesus came to save this world (such as in John 3:16). The biblical cosmos was vanishingly small compared to our current understanding. Where is our place in the universe? Conversely, if this seems like a loss for Christianity, could it be a gain for other religions?

Some of these topics I've addressed in this blog, and I'll certainly tackle as many as I can in 2020. As always, feel free to let me know what you think.

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Keeping Faith in a Science-Saturated Culture

Recently, I was asked to answer the question of how Christians keep faith--and even provide a witness--in a science-saturated culture.

I came up with three answers.

First of all, I'd learn from the great scientists in the past and present and be inspired by the heritage of Christians in the sciences.

It’s clear that almost every great thinker of the explosion of science in the sixteenth and seventeenth scientific revolution were deeply affected by the Gospel: Copernicus, Pascal, and Galileo. Does that last name surprise you? At least in part, he was trying to reform the Catholic church of his time so that they would take in the emerging sun-centered (heliocentric) universe, and in the process he made remarkable statements about faith and his scientific work:

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” Galileo Galilei

And then, as science continued to develop, great thinkers like Michael Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell were both profoundly committed to their Christian faith as they made their mark on 19th-century science. Today this legacy is carried forward by Jennifer Wiseman, who is Senior Project Scientist for NASA’s Hubble space telescope, and by Francis Collins led the Human Genome Project and now heads the National Institutes of Health. 

“I find that studying the natural world is an opportunity to observe the majesty, the elegance, the intricacy of God's creation.” Francis Collins

Second, I'd remember the beauty in reading God’s two books, the book of nature and the book of Scripture. Consider how this comes together in two verses in Psalm 19:

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Psalm 19:1 

"The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul." Psalm 19:7

These biblical verses speak about these two books, which are complementary (though not exactly the same) and have one Author. God has written the law (or Torah) to direct human life and has authored the natural world, which leads us to see God's glory.

  

Third, I'd continue to learn worship through insights into the beauty and intricacy of the natural world. As the 18th-century theologian and natural philosopher Jonathan Edwards wrote about the beauty in nature: 

“All the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation is but the reflection of the diffused beams of that Being who hath an infinite fullness of brightness and glory.” Jonathan Edwards

Karin Öberg: C. S Lewis is a Voice Worth Listening to

Mainstream science
meets mere Christianity

I want to introduce you to a new-found contributor (at least to me) in the science-faith connection, but first let me say--on a topic related to integrating mainstream science with mere Christianity--that my book, Mere Science and Christian Faith is currently on sale for $4.99 in the Kindle edition. 

Here's a comment from one Amazon reader that offers an introduction:

“I absolutely loved this book. I found it to address most of my concerns involving Christian faith and proven science. The book really takes on so many tough topics that matter in the context of attracting and retaining Christians. This honest reflection truly empowers the church to be more inclusive and inspires 'nones' to see the love of Christ and scientific reason as compatible with one another. Thank you Greg for such a thoughtful book which I am excited to share with others!” Marc, an Amazon reader of Mere Science

Ok, now to Karin Öberg, Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University and leader of the Öberg Astrochemistry Group at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I encourage you to read her recent interview with BioLogos (the faith-science nonprofit that the head of the National Institutes of Health Francis Collins helped start). 

She was commenting that, after finishing her undergraduate studies at Caltech and beginning her Ph.D. in Leiden, and her path toward Christianity and especially Catholicism. She is a walking rejoinder to those who assert that you must decided between being a top scientist and a Christian. By the way, guess who shows up? C.S. Lewis 

“The next book I ordered was Mere Christianity, which is a dangerous book to read if you are trying to stay agnostic, especially if you’re primed, as I was…. Being well-primed, I got through about half the book before acknowledging that I believed what C.S. Lewis believed.” Karin Öberg, Harvard astronomer

“Believed what C. S. Lewis believed”—let’s let that sink in for a moment...

St. Clive keeps showing up

OK, has that settled? Lewis a non-scientist, has affected scholars of Christians in the sciences to consider faith. Francis Collins, of course, is Exhibit A. (You can find even more about Lewis's influence in this excellent PBS interview with Collins.)

In the interview she was asked about the alleged conflict between faith and science.

Q: Why do you think the idea of a conflict between science and faith persists for many students? 

I don’t think students come into college with an intellectually rigorous reason for why there should be a conflict between science and religion. I think they just pick it up because when they see things about science and religion in media, it’s always a conflict. The Catholic leadership is very clear that there is no conflict between science and religion, yet many Catholic students I talk to think that to be good Catholics, they can’t take seriously some scientific claims. So I think it’s something they’ve subconsciously absorbed through society rather than deeply thought about. Most of the time when I talk to students, we can very quickly remove major barriers. For example, a common one is, how can you accept that there are miracles and at the same time do science? I think this misunderstands both natural laws and miracles." Karin Öberg

I'll close then with one last question on what it means to bring Christian faith to a top-notch secular environment. I find the answer inspiring and don't need additional comment. (Res ipsa loquitur, as the saying goes.)

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add? 

I feel like there are so many stories of Christians that have had a great struggle in academia and for whom living out their faith has been problematic in different ways. While these people do exist and those struggles are real, I want people to know that this is not always the case. I have had a smooth and joyful journey being very open about my faith at the very secular place that Harvard is. And by being open about my faith, I’ve had many meaningful encounters at Harvard and many good discussions with my colleagues. I think it’s important to have both kinds of stories out there—academia is often painted as a very dark environment for Christians, but it doesn’t have to be." Karin Öberg

Francis Collins, BioLogos, and the Harmony of Science and Religion

As I mentioned in the last post, I was just at the BioLogos conference on science and religion, which was (as expected), often profound and captivating. One of the key reasons was spending time with, and hearing from, the head of the National Institutes of Health and author of The Language of God, Francis Collins. He's a guitarist, singer, and often, song leader, and to the left here he is with his "double helix" guitar.

Collins can to public recognition when headed the Human Genome Initiative, which, in 2000 decoded the entire 3 billion letters of the human genome “on time and under budget” (as I’ve heard him celebrate), in a “rough draft” form. 

The Language of God, written in 2007, strikes a tone that could be pleasing to no one, or at least, problematic for the vocal poles. He rejects both scientific atheism (in a thoughtful  gentler manner appropriate to his personality) and hardcore Creationism as well as Intelligent Design. For example, he once commented to CNN, 

“Attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.” Francis Collins

But it manages to present a winsome, harmonious connection between religion and science. He even sees a profound reconciliation between religion and science that even leads to worship:

“The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. He can be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. His creation is majestic, awesome, intricate, and beautiful.” The Language of God

So why the term "BioLogos"? Ultimately, Collins wanted to reformulate the traditional phrase theistic evolution, which seems to privileged "evolution" and put God second. Instead he coined Biologos. 

“Scholars will recognize “bios as the Greek word for ‘life’ (the root word for biology, biochemistry, and so forth), and logos as the Greek for ‘word.’” 

“’Biologos expresses the belief that God is the source of all life and that life expresses the will of God.” The Language of God

In the same year his book was published, the BioLogos Foundation was started to offer a voice to promote the harmony of science, and especially evolution, with evangelical Christianity. And so last week, we (and I as a member of the advisory council) celebrated its ten year anniversary.

At the conference, he recounted an encounter as a medical student in which a dying patient had laid out her faith in Jesus as the Christ and then asked, “Doctor, what do you believe?” (You can see a more detailed version of Collins's testimony in this Veritas Forum video.) He was stunned and knew he had no answer. So—after asking a local Methodist pastor for a recommendation—he began reading C. S. Lewis’s famous defense of the faith, Mere Christianity:

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds.

At age 27, he became a Christian.

In spending time with him, I found Collins both humble and confident, knowing his life in light of God's grandeur and yet his experience and scientific training. (He has collected both a PhD in physical chemistry and an MD.) Collins combines a world class grasp and passion for genetics—and thus evolution—with "mere Christianity." 

That makes Collins a significant voice for science and religion--and that fascinates me. Plus, he's fun to hang out with.

Two Events This Week On Religion and Science

At least two things happened, or are happening, this week that struck me and that have implications for how I understand religion and science: 1) I participated in a meeting of the BioLogos Advisory Council (of which I’m a member), and 2) I’m teaching, reading, and watching Shakespeare’s stunning Romeo and Juliet.

Romeo and Juliet on Religion and Science

Let’s start with the Bard and R&J, his tragedy of two “star-crossed lovers” (Prologue, 5) written around 1595, when intellectual giants like Francis Bacon and a young Galileo walked the earth. 

In a word, the scientific revolution had begun. 

And so had the English Reformation, initiated by the oddest reformer, Henry VIII, who wanted a divorce that the Catholic Church wouldn’t grant. So he left the Church and his wife in order to marry Anne Boleyn. Their daughter, Queen Elizabeth, at the time of R&J,was fully enacting the English reformation that her father, Henry VIII initiated. Religion was changing too.

As I mentioned above, these two young lovers are “star-crossed,” which points to the medieval superstition (still very prevalent then and even today) that the stars directed human life, while also offering a nod to the rapidly expanding astronomy of the day. “Bill” (Shakespeare, that is) and his R&J fall right between Copernicus’s presentation of the heliocentric model in 1543 and Galileo’s defense in the 1620s and ‘30s. Even more, he was part of the growing consciousness that the universe was getting bigger and the medieval world of a “dome” (not entirely unlike a huge planetarium around us) needed to be discarded. This is, of course, what C. S. Lewis named “The Discarded Image.”

Shakespeare stands at this nexus of religion and science and their dramatic changes. That alone makes his work compelling.

 “What Does it Mean to Be Human?”

And then BioLogos, the organization begun almost a decade ago by the head of the Human

Genome Initiative, Francis Collins, who know heads the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and has spoken frequently and effectively about his conversation to Christ. I serve on their Advisory Council, and on Monday night, I attended a public event where the Cornell geneticist (and as I understand it, former student of Collins), Praveen Saderpathy addressed the question of “What is does it mean to be human?” He reminded us that it isn’t in our physical makeup since a huge proportion of our DNA is actually virus DNA, gradually integrated into our genome over the millennia and that in our bodies at any given time are a host (likely a host) of billions of non-human bacteria. In the end he pointed to Genesis 1 and God’s call on us to bear the divine image as God’s representatives and stewards on this earth.

In this post, I’m trying to avoid a forced link between these two things, but it does seem like they’re how we as human beings act—like mad lovers who flout convention, representatives of a gracious Creator and Redeemer, or something else? Answering this question led me to conclude that, minimally, we better stick with nature and with our nature. It’s only natural.

The Yes of Service

(One more installment from my book, The Time for Yes.)

Woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Ecclesiastes 4:10

It seems natural for us to seek what we want. That’s happiness. But I think we often get the seeking all wrong. 

      

I remember hearing the well-known evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson offer this question at a conference (and I paraphrase), “You put two groups on a desert island. One is completely self-centered. The other has learned to work as a team, to cooperate, sometimes taking so that others will survive. Which of the two groups is going to survive the longest—the self-seeking or the altruistic?”

      

Obviously, it’s those who cooperate. They will have bonded together against various foes. So, if we are altruistic in the sense that David Sloan Wilson describes, it’s good commonsense: we are more likely to survive.

      

It even seems natural for us to seek the betterment of our own—to care for our family, those close to us. Evolutionary psychology tells us that we are designed to act altruistically toward those who share our genes. We’d like to see those genes carried on beyond our life. So altruism is selfish in that view.

      

“But, wait,” writes one of the most influential scientists of our day, the head of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins. “What about those people who give themselves to a cause beyond their own genes? What about Oskar Schindler? Why did this Nazi-party German save Jews at his own peril?” (I’m paraphrasing, but you can find this in Collins’s book The Language of God.)

      

Evidently, we can go beyond mere evolutionary survival. We have been implanted with the power to care for those beyond our kin.

      

Apparently, Jesus thought so too. He described his own life—as very God in flesh—this way in the record of his life: 

“The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many’” (Mark 10:45). 

Actually, he even declared that we should do the same. Hearing his own followers’ clamoring to the head of the line, he responded with this: 

“Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.” (Mark 10:43-44).

     

Jesus even described this in terms of seeking our best—“to gain our life” is the phrase he employs: 

“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it” (Mark 8:35 TNIV).

      

Here’s what that means for me: I grew up in the secular happiness haven of Menlo Park, California. Most people know that location today as the headquarters of Facebook, nestled in the heart of the Silicon Valley, a place of joyously unrelenting spring, oodles of wealth and beautifully tanned and exercised people. Or something like that… at least, it’s a place to be happy on your own terms. And to seek life for yourself.

      

But Jesus taught me that we find our happiness not in self-seeking, but in serving others… even those beyond our kin group: 

“Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me,” (Matthew 25:40).

      

So I have to have others around me—and here’s the importance of relationships, the “love” theme in this book. Who will help me serve? They will even serve with me. It’s fun. So I’ve discovered I need to surround myself with those who look out for others, who know the yes of service.

      

I’ve learned to team with my wife Laura to donate to nonprofits (and she’s taught me a lot about what that means). I’ve pounded nails with teams of college students in Baja, California, to build basic two-room houses for those who make $10/day. I’ve partnered with friends to serve meals at our local homeless shelter, the Jesus Center. And maybe even thrown in a little of the Boy Scout promise of doing something kind for someone else each day.

      

Otherwise, I’ll just sit around and do things to “keep my life”… which in the end, simply helps me lose it.

Next Steps: How to Integrate Mere Christianity with Mainstream Science

In various posts, I've presented reasons why we need to bring science to church, why we need to integrate mere Christianity (to use C. S. Lewis's term) with mainstream science.

With this in mind, what do we do?

Francis Collins, after his talks, offers his audience copies of Mere Christianity. That’s one effective way to counter atheism. (And why not add N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian or Tim Keller’s The Reason for God?) 

But if that’s all I wrote, I suspect you might sense I’m passing the buck.

      

Ideally, in order to respond to these trends, we’d all have degrees in science, theology, philosophy, or all three. This, however represents an ideal and not the reality. Most of those who lead emerging adult ministries or simply care to talk with 18-30 year olds, will be learning science on the side or as a component of their wider ministry skills. We have to learn who the key influencers are, and to know what’s Top Ten Hits on the Science music list. Similarly, youth workers and theologians Andrew Root and Erik Leafblad advocate, “While it is unreasonable to become scientists, as youth workers we need to become knowledgeable about the ways in which science helps frame reality for our students.” Encouraging ministry leaders to read the New York Times “Science Times,” attend public lectures at their colleges, or read Best Science and Nature Writing.

      

Second, get to know the thought leaders and those who know about them. This is even more critical for college ministries, but also easier—get to know scientists in local congregations and those in university positions nearby. Attend a talk at a library, community center, or college nearby.

      

Finally, know where honest science finds its own limits (not where popularizers want to use science to promote their aims). Even more where it invites deeper wonder and worship. Science may just be playing the intro to a much broader song, even a symphony.

“Science can be one piece of a broader and ongoing invitation to wonder and adventure, as well as doubt and uncertainty in life with God.” Andrew Root and Erik Leafblad

In many cases, this evokes wonder and awe at the natural world God has created and lead to deeper worship. In others, this investigation of science leads to a realization that there are limits to scientific insight and discovery and faith and wonder in the God beyond the natural world is the only reasonable conclusion.

      

Only God is God, and his book of Scripture complements, but is certainly beyond the book of Nature. Blaise Pascal, who lived in the seventeenth century and contribution to the birth of modern science, knew the limits of scientific and philosophical reason:

"If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason." Blaise Pascal

"Because It's True": Why We Need to Engage Science for the Sake of the Gospel

I'm writing a book on why we need to integrate Christian faith and mainstream science, especially for emerging adults (18-30 years old). This is the current version of my opening paragraphs ("the lede" in publishing speak)--I'd be interested to know what you think.

I write this book because it’s true.

      And it here can refer to at least three things. Each of which is also true. I'll post just the first two of these today.

      First of all, it’s true that we as Christians believe that Jesus is Lord of all. Therefore whatever forms of human knowledge—and thus whatever the sciences—truly discover, we are bound to bring it under Christ’s Lordship. In other words, no form of human insight and knowledge is outside of Christ. Put another way, God knows far more about science than Albert Einstein.

      Secondly, it’s true because whatever human knowledge discovers in nature, we are bound to follow it. Because God made the natural world.

      This realization emerges from the fact that when we begin by confessing that God has created this world very good, we are in the proper starting place for the study of nature as Christians and as scientists.

"O Lord, how manifold are your works! 

    In wisdom you have made them all; 

    the earth is full of your creatures." Psalm 104.24

Or from The Message

"What a wildly wonderful world, God! 

    You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, 

    made earth overflow with your wonderful creations."

      I was at a conference on science and theology and a biologist commented, “Every scientist I know began with a profound experience with nature.” The message of the Bible is that we are created to relate to the world around us. The thrill of the scientist is that the natural world is exciting to discover. That begins the process of science.

      Consider the daughter of a friend, Eva. As we were hiking in the Sierra Nevada

mountains together, she would find beautiful rocks and bring them to her father (who has a degree in geology)—“Aren’t these amazing? Isn’t this one pretty, dad?” He affirmed her scientific impulses and dutifully collected each of these geological gems (and they gradually filled and weighted her his backpack.) 

Eva essentially summarizes my point.

            And so does the great astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus: 

“The universe has been wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator.” 

Or, the head of the National Institutes of Health and one of the top scientists in our country—and also a follower of Jesus—Francis Collins, 

“I find that studying the natural world is an opportunity to observe the majesty, the elegance, the intricacy of God's creation”

Collins, Copernicus, and Eva agree: I need to write this book because it's true.